As has been suggested in an earlier paragraph, it is characteristic of hedonistic economics that the large and central element in its theoretical structure is the doctrine of distribution. Consumption being taken for granted as a quantitive matter simply,--essentially a matter of an insatiable appetite,--economics becomes a theory of acquisition; production is, theoretically, a process of acquisition, and distribution a process of distributive acquisition. The theory of production is drawn in terms of the gains to be acquired by production; and under competitive conditions this means necessarily the acquisition of a distributive share of what is available. The rest of what the facts of productive industry include, as, _e.g._, the facts of workmanship or the " state of the industrial arts," gets but a scant and perfunctory attention. Those matters are not of the theoretical essence of the scheme. Mr. Clark's general theory of production does not differ substantially from that commonly professed by the marginal-utility school. It is a theory of competitive acquisition. An inquiry into the principles of his doctrine, therefore, as they appear, _e.g._, in the early chapters of the _Essentials_, is, in effect, an inquiry into the competence of the main theorems of modern hedonistic economics. "All men seek to get as much net service from material wealth as they can." "Some of the benefit received is neutralised by the sacrifice incurred; but there is a net surplus of gains not thus canceled by sacrifices, and the generic motive which may properly be called economic is the desire to make this surplus large."[35] It is of the essence of the scheme that the acquisitive activities of mankind afford a net balance of pleasure. It is out of this net balance, presumably, that "the consumer's surpluses" arise, or it is in this that they merge. This optimistic conviction is a matter of presumption, of course; but it is universally held to be true by hedonistic economists, particularly by those who cultivate the doctrines of marginal utility. It is not questioned and not proven. It seems to be a surviving remnant of the eighteenth-century faith in a benevolent Order of Nature; that is to say, it is a rationalistic metaphysical postulate. It may be true or not, as matter of fact; but it is a postulate of the school, and its optimistic bias runs like a red thread through all the web of argument that envelops the "normal" competitive system. A surplus of gain is normal to the theoretical scheme.